BIZZARE PROBLEM WITH OUTLOOK 2003: SORT ON SIZE FIELD BUG

[Farooq]

Folks-

Here's an interesting one for you. I am using OL 2003 on both Windows
XP and Windows 2000. For the most part, it is a huge improvement over
its predecessors but I am encountering a very strange behavior (bug?).

My OL 2003 is set up in "offline cached mode" to speed things up, FYI.

When I sort on the "size" field in my Inbox ("Messages" view), the
display seems to "lose" the largest N messages. The only clues are:

1. The system gets really slow
2. Scrolling to the largest items becomes painful and slow (the scroll
slider "bounces" back up and doesn't want to go to these messages
3. All I see when looking at the largest mail items is "None" in the
Received field. That's it. No amount of waiting or clicking makes
messages appear.
4. Moving the mouse to these "ghost" messages seems to do nothing
other than cause the reading pane to go grey.
5. This seems to be a Microsoft Exchange-related issue since when I
use IMAP, this problem goes away entirely

I'd appreciate any enlightenment on this strange behavior in an
otherwise superb product.

Farooq

 

[Roady [MVP]]

How large is the offline file? Do you still have quite a lot of room left on
your harddisk (at least 14% of the total space) and have you defragmented
it?

Also have you tried recreating your Off-line folder? When Outlook is closed
rename it to .old and start Outlook again so it will synchronize again and
create a new Off-line folder.

--
Roady [MVP]
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[Farooq]

The offline folder size is 373 MB. I have tried recreating it by doing as you said. The problem persists. It's really difficult to manage large files and is turning out to be a huge headache. I used to simply "sort on size" and then delete large files to manage the folder size but this strange behaviour is leading to more .ost obesity. Help!

 

[Roady [MVP]]

What happens if you use a search folder for this?
If still available in your organization; have you tried it with Outlook 2002
and Off-line folders?

--
Roady [MVP]
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-----

The offline folder size is 373 MB. I have tried recreating it by doing as

you said. The problem persists. It's really difficult to manage large files
and is turning out to be a huge headache. I used to simply "sort on size"
and then delete large files to manage the folder size but this strange
behaviour is leading to more .ost obesity. Help!

 

[Farooq]

Roady.... a very interesting story....

1. Your idea about search folders did not work....initially..... I created a "Biggies" search folder and it exhibited the same weird behaviors when sorting on size. This was also true for the "Large Mail" folder that comes bundled with OL 2003. However, everything is now working.... HUH?

Here's the only clues for the miracle cure:

1. I did stumble on a kludgy workaround for my problem, and here it is: use the "find" function and to select everything bigger than "n" KB. This seems to work and the resultant list could be sorted to find the biggies targeted for cleanup. This list seemed to work OK and did not show the strange behavior I have spoken about.

BUT


2. While examining the "find" results, I noted some very weird "off by one" kind of error when sorting using the size field on the "find" results for my Inbox. I saw a sequence like: 123KB, 140KB, 203KB, 600KB, 384KB where the last email's size seemed "off" (in this case 384KB was out of ascending order of size). I deleted the offending email, thinking that it must be corrupted.

3. Everything works now!! In my Inbox, in the search folders and in any other folder....



So all I can conclude:

1. Either the offending out-of-size-sequence email I deleted was corrupt and messing OL 2003's search algorithms and wreaking havoc.

OR

2. The sequence of manual "finds" that I did, jolted OL 2003 into sanity. I don't understand how.

OR

3. The messing about with search folders and trying to create new views for size jolted OL2003 into sanity. I tried to create new views that would sort on size.


In any case, a very strange problem with an even stranger resolution. I learned a lot about OL 2003 but still feel that I did the equivalent of waving bones and making voodoo incantations. Thank you Roady! At least I now feel I can lecture about "find", "views" and "search folders"! ;-)

fmb

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Good to hear your problem is solved and thanks for sharing your issue. I
think that the corrupted message caused you the problems.

From my perspective you can never learn too much about Outlook ;-)

Regards,
--
Roady [MVP]
www.sparnaaij.net
Microsoft Office and Microsoft Office related News
Also Outlook FAQ, How To's, Downloads and more...

Tip of the month:
-Tips for cleaning up your mailbox

Subscribe to the newsletter to receive news and tips & tricks in your
mailbox!
www.sparnaaij.net

(I changed my reply address; remove all CAPS and _underscores_ from the
address when mailing)
-----

Roady.... a very interesting story....

1. Your idea about search folders did not work....initially..... I created

a "Biggies" search folder and it exhibited the same weird behaviors when
sorting on size. This was also true for the "Large Mail" folder that comes
bundled with OL 2003. However, everything is now working.... HUH?

Here's the only clues for the miracle cure:

1. I did stumble on a kludgy workaround for my problem, and here it is:

use the "find" function and to select everything bigger than "n" KB. This
seems to work and the resultant list could be sorted to find the biggies
targeted for cleanup. This list seemed to work OK and did not show the
strange behavior I have spoken about.

BUT


2. While examining the "find" results, I noted some very weird "off by

one" kind of error when sorting using the size field on the "find" results
for my Inbox. I saw a sequence like: 123KB, 140KB, 203KB, 600KB, 384KB
where the last email's size seemed "off" (in this case 384KB was out of
ascending order of size). I deleted the offending email, thinking that it
must be corrupted.

3. Everything works now!! In my Inbox, in the search folders and in any other folder....



So all I can conclude:

1. Either the offending out-of-size-sequence email I deleted was corrupt

and messing OL 2003's search algorithms and wreaking havoc.

OR

2. The sequence of manual "finds" that I did, jolted OL 2003 into sanity. I don't understand how.

OR

3. The messing about with search folders and trying to create new views

for size jolted OL2003 into sanity. I tried to create new views that would
sort on size.

In any case, a very strange problem with an even stranger resolution. I

learned a lot about OL 2003 but still feel that I did the equivalent of
waving bones and making voodoo incantations. Thank you Roady! At least I
now feel I can lecture about "find", "views" and "search folders"! ;-)